In forming and processing sheet material, such material is generally conveyed in an open or flat disposition through various processing steps, after which predetermined lengths of the material are wound onto reusable cores for storage and shipping. For example, in the textile industry, it is common practice to imprint a design onto a traveling length of fabric, and then convey the fabric through a tenter frame in which it is heated to promote drying of the dyes, after which the fabric is wound onto a receiving or storage roll and cut when a predetermined length of the fabric has been wound onto the core. During this processing and winding of the fabric, it is being conveyed continuously at very high speeds, sometimes in excess of one hundred yards per minute, and difficulties are often encountered in carrying out the various steps required by the processing cycle without interrupting the rapid rate of travel of the fabric being processed.
Thus, in equipment presently utilized to cut and wind fabric material being delivered from a tenter frame or similar source, a frame is provided to extend above a pair of trucks, each of which carries a core onto which the fabric is to be wound. The frame is provided with an arm member that is selectively movable on the frame so as to be alternatively positionable above one or the other of the trucks, and the arm member is also mounted on the frame for selective pivotal movement about a horizontal axis so that the extending end of the arm can be disposed in surface contact with the core of one or the other of the trucks and can gradually pivot upwardly as the material is wound onto the core and the diameter thereof increases. The frame and the arm are provided with a system of rolls by which the fabric is guided and conveyed to the core.
In using this conventional equipment, the fabric is wound onto one of the cores until it contains a predetermined length of the fabric, after which the equipment is automatically stopped by an appropriate switch, and an operator must then carry out a number of manual steps to prepare the equipment for winding fabric onto the other, empty core. Thus, the operator must first cut the fabric, which is now stopped, with a hand-held shearing device, and then pivot the arm member upwardly to clear the full core, move the arm member along the frame until it is positioned above the empty core, and then pivot the arm downwardly until the feed roll at the extending end thereof is positioned in surface contact with the empty core. The operator must next grab the cut edge of the fabric and manually wrap several turns of the fabric about the empty core, whereupon the equipment is again energized.
Even though the movement of the arm member is carried out by motors which are controlled by the operator, it will be appreciated that a considerable amount of time is consumed while the various steps are carried out by the operator, usually between thirty seconds and three minutes. During this time interval, the fabric continues to be fed to the winding equipment from the tenter frame at the above-described rapid feed rate, and it has therefore been necessary to utilize vary large cloth accumulator apparatus which accumulates the excess fabric during the time the winding equipment is being changed from the full core to the empty core. This additional accumulator apparatus is quite expensive, and therefore adds significantly to the necessary costs involved in using the winding equipment. In some instances, accumulator apparatus is not utilized because of its costs, in which case the tenter frame must be stopped during the core change operation. Such stopping of the tenter frame not only results in low production each time a core is filled, but it can also result in the cloth being scorched while it is being retained within the tenter frame.
A further disadvantage inherent in aforesaid conventional winding equipment is the fact that the operator must grasp the edge of the cloth after it is cut so that it can be wrapped about the empty core, and it sometimes happens that the operator will lose his grasp on the fabric, with the result that the natural resiliency of the fabric will cause it to snap back in the direction of the tenter frame and to become unthreaded from the system of rolls through which it is fed. When this occurs, additional time is lost during rethreading of the fabric through the rolls to exacerbate further the problem of dealing with the fabric being fed from the tenter frame as discussed above.
To overcome the aforesaid drawbacks of conventional fabric winding equipment, the present invention provides for equipment of this type which automatically cuts the fabric and feeds it onto the empty core without any handling or cutting of the fabric by the operator, thereby permitting the core change to be facilitated quickly enough to avoid the need for using accumulator apparatus or for shutting down the tenter frame during the core changing operation.